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One writer says, in 70 A.D. before Rome destroyed Jerusalem, Jewish priests offered daily sacrifices, prayed, and waited three months for God to rescue them from the Romans, but God never did. God had ended the sacrificial system 40 years before when Christ died on the cross. Before He died, Jesus predicted the city’s destruction. This alerts us to a critical truth. In our dire straights, we often ask, “Where is God to rescue us? Instead of blaming God, we might well ask whether we are basing our request upon God’s promise. When Peter spoke to the Jewish nation (in Acts Chapter 2), he assured them that God had promised many years before to raise Jesus the Messiah from the dead. He quoted David’s words from Psalm 16 where David said, “You will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave.” Peter said, when David wrote those words 1,000 years ago, you can be sure he was not referring to himself, for he died and was buried, and his tomb is still here among us. But David was a prophet; he knew God had promised with an oath that a descendant of David would sit on his throne. When David spoke, he based his request upon what God had promised to do. So when we pray, we can be more effective when we base our request upon what God has promised to do.
